


Depths and Fathoms

by raven_aorla



Series: Made to Measure [5]
Category: Criminal Minds (US TV), Gotham (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Humor, Bittersweet, Crossover, Dysfunctional Family, Ed That is Not How You Cousin, Gen, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, Male-Female Friendship, Mental Health Issues, Moral Ambiguity, Past Brainwashing, Penelope Garcia is a Cinnamon Roll, References to Drugs, Spencer Reid as Unsub
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-15
Updated: 2017-08-15
Packaged: 2018-12-15 18:07:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11811399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raven_aorla/pseuds/raven_aorla
Summary: When Reid was declared dead with several others after a disastrous consultation in Gotham, Garcia found evidence he might be alive and being held prisoner. More than three years after they concluded no, he really was dead, she's found evidence that he might be alive, but changed. As in, costumed supervillainy, maniacal-laughter-optional kind of changed.[Can be read on its own.]





	Depths and Fathoms

The Reader climbed up the drainpipe and into the second-floor window that had been left unlocked and with the screen pushed aside as promised. A man and a woman waited for him in the anonymous little hotel room. The man had a thick file. The woman had a hole in her heart. (Okay, her Chocolate Adonis probably had a hole in his heart too, but he was being all stoic and muscle-y right now and that’s what she needed.)

Garcia’s research showed that the Reader was a particularly elusive member of what the Gotham media called the “Rogues' Gallery”, meaning the criminals who were both influential and...strange. Unusual motivations. Usually costumes. Sometimes superlative or spooky abilities.

She’d wanted to talk to the Reader, and pleaded with her best friend to help her find something to draw him out. To come with her on a three-day-weekend. No way in hell was she going to drive up to a city this dangerous on her own, and she couldn’t trust anyone else not to call her delusional or doubt her emotional stability. She’d told nobody else. Derek Morgan was skeptical, but he wanted her to be safe. She’d shown him photos, studied them herself for hours, but that couldn’t compare to looking right at the real thing. 

The Reader wore a mask from hairline to just below the cheekbones. It looked like burnt pages printed with a Romance language, and there was a strip of lace across the eyes to make it harder to see them. The rest of him was covered up with black (gloves, pants, leather newsboy cap, collared shirt, suede leather sneakers), creamy off-white (the mask itself, a handkerchief, a pinned necktie imprinted with the words YOU ARE AN OPEN BOOK), and gray (dark gray vest, lighter gray herringbone jacket with black leather elbow patches). A glimpse of a gun on his hip. A part of her thought it was kind of a dapper ensemble actually. 

But the man’s face below the mask. His _mouth._ Then there was his height and his build and just everything clothes didn’t hide. Even if he had a thin black goatee. Like evil Spock in the _Star Trek_ mirror universe.

The Reader’s voice had a slight rasp to it, but he spoke cordially. “You said you had documents pertaining to Edward Nygma, Oswald Cobblepot, and their associates, borrowed from Quantico.” Garcia hadn't been able to find direct contact info for the Reader, but she'd unearthed his regular bookie, of all things, who'd passed along the message. Apparently the Reader was unusually good at predicting sports results and used various aliases for bets.

It was said that friends helped you move and best friends helped you move bodies. In Garcia’s case, friends helped you do research and best friends helped you take your research that you weren’t technically supposed to have or, like, show people. After debating back and forth, they’d decided letting him know that they knew basically exactly what the GCPD knew wouldn’t really do any harm. It was a risk. Everything else they thought of was worse. Morgan had slept on it, but agreed in the end. “You can look at it, but you can’t have it. We have to put it back. Sorry.”

“I understand.” He held out a hand, took the file, and started reading at a dizzying pace. Flip. Flip. Flip. 

Morgan said, “You wanted to see us just as much as we did.”

“FBI employees risking their careers for a few minutes of conversation _is_ fairly intriguing,” the Reader replied. Flip. Flip. "Even if these are obviously copies."

“Okay, you got us on that. This is what we have on Nygma. What does Nygma have on you?” Morgan was searching as much of the Reader’s face as could be seen. Garcia was letting him do this part of the talking, what with being the real profiler here. Also she didn’t trust herself not to develop a bad case of eye leaking. 

The Reader hesitated for about two seconds. “He is an excellent business partner, and I am not afraid to say a friend as well.” 

"Nygma had a one-time visitor in Arkham. A visitor who later tagged along with a team other than his usual team to investigate a mass grave near the Gotham docks, and died in the same accidental gas explosion the rest of them did. Or so they said."

The Reader stopped reading. Garcia saw his gloves flex ever-so-slightly as he gripped the files. He called out, “Yoona, could you please say hello?”

The hotel room door, which was supposed to be locked, opened a crack. An Asian woman missing one eyebrow poked her head in, waved her left hand, and waggled a gun with her right hand. It closed again.

“Sorry, I couldn’t get permission to come see you without bringing a chaperone.” The Reader sounded genuinely apologetic and embarrassed, like he was a teenager explaining his curfew. “Did you know that Gotham has so many contract killers at various levels of organization that they have regular conferences to make sure they don’t get in each other’s way by accident? The Zsasz Family are the only ones to literally cohabitate and pool resources, though one may see analogues in the traditional Yakuza practice of legally adopting other gang members.”

Garcia had looked up everyone who worked for, with, or against Edward Nygma and his husband Oswald Cobblepot. So she knew Zsasz: a deceptively affable sociopath who celebrated every murder by scarring himself with a tally mark. Several of those tallies were for cops. 

“What’s her role?” Morgan asked calmly.

“It’s to keep you from abducting me,” the Reader said, going back to the files at a speed Garcia had only seen in one person. 

Not arrest. Abduct. As if the Reader was a reckless child rather than a notorious criminal.

“You’re related to Nygma, aren’t you?” Morgan pressed.

“You’re not the first people to think that.” 

“He’s the one who gives you permission to do things. He’s the one who profiles as the dominant partner to your submissive role. Your M.O. is to rely on your ability to _read_ people’s personalities and use information about their pasts to develop an understanding, with violence as a last resort. When you work on your own, it’s vigilantism and gambling, maybe a bit of minor white-collar. When you work with him, it’s blackmail, extortion, racketeering, murder, and drug dealing. Though there is a pattern of how he drags you down, but you hold him back compared to when he’s on his own.”

“Paperboy hasn’t been outlawed," the Reader said softly. “It makes people feel good without hurting them.”

“If you take too much, it makes you highly suggestible,” Morgan said, crossing his arms, frustration and sadness creeping into his stoic image. “Cooperative. Especially towards whoever provides the drug. To the point of desperately wanting to please them.”

The Reader winced. “We thought we’d weeded that particular side effect out for the commercial version. Unfortunately it’s difficult to do long-term testing, especially at high dosages. In our defense, those people were being forced to take several times the standard amount every day. That’s not something we could realistically foresee.”

“The perpetrators ended up found with a bullet to their heads and quotes from Dante’s _Inferno_ in the original Italian pinned to their shirts. I’d say an UnSub with a high level of education and an interest in medieval literature, obviously, but also a strong sense of righteous anger. Compassion for people who’ve been taken advantage of. You don’t profile as sadistic, Reader. Your compass points ‘justice’ and ‘Nygma’, but the latter overrides the former.”

“I don’t know what you mean by ‘UnSub’,” the Reader said. Then he clutched the files to his chest when Garcia started crying. He wasn’t an Unidentified Subject. He was Identified.

Her words came out in a torrent. “Stop it, Reid, I know it, I know it’s you! I convinced JJ and Prentiss and Morgan to help me look after your funeral, because I had hope, and we looked and we looked and we gave up. We forgot to tell your old college buddy-maybe-boyfriend about your funeral, by the way, because you only mentioned him once. I dug his number up while trying to figure out anything from your past that might affect the case, but by the time we got ahold of him we’d already found enough evidence of our own that you really were dead...so we just gave our condolences...Reid, it’s been so long, we’ve missed you so much.”

“I...I...don’t know who…” 

“Spencer. _Please._ What’d he do to our boy genius? How long before he made you like this?” She gestured vaguely in his direction. “We talked to someone who facilitated the visit, said you said your mothers were cousins….That’s the side of the family the schizophrenia comes from. Also, I bet, at least some of the genius...because Riddler’s smart as...as a smarty-pants that has to be a big showoff about it, don’t get me wrong. Um. I don’t know what I’m saying.”

“Whatever you’re insinuating, there’s nothing wrong with me, and the mentally ill are far more likely than average people to be victims, not perpetrators,” said the Reader. Clutching. “There are some tissues on the bedside table.”

“We're not taking potshots at the mentally ill. Especially not your mother." Morgan watched for the flinch, and was rewarded. "We don’t want to arrest you or ‘abduct’ you. We want to bring you home safely. We can fix this, get you out of this mess. Garcia had a lot of outstanding warrants on her once upon a time. There’s gonna have to be consequences, sure, but we’ll be with you every step of the way and help you with all of the obstacles. Including the woman on the other side of the door.”

Garcia took a tissue and blew her nose. “Prentiss has left, JJ’s no longer going into the field, and Rossi’s retired again. Their replacements are nice but it’s not the same. It was never the same without you.”

“I should go now,” the Reader said, making no move to leave.

Then came a voice from just below the window. “I said this would happen!” Gangly and vividly green-covered arms appeared over the sill before Nygma-as-Riddler in all his questionable shiny emerald glory clambered into the room. The Reader tucked the files under one arm so he could help the Riddler with the last bit of maneuvering.

“Did you drop your bowler?” the Reader asked.

“Yes. I’ll get someone to fetch it. I ran two blocks when Yoona texted her concern about where the conversation was going. More importantly, you sound upset.” Nygma sounded concerned. During the first round of unofficial searching for Spencer Reid, the conspirators had profiled him as definitely capable of attachment of various types, but always intense and possessive. If he were someone’s uncle, he would uncle the everloving hell out of them, no other uncles allowed, woe be unto any remotely avuncular individuals who came within fifteen feet. And so on.

She could understand why Aaron Hotchner got annoyed with how she talked during stressful situations.

The Reader picked up the files. “It’s fine. I have it under control.”

Nygma shook his head. “If your endeavors did me well, you wouldn’t hear my knell. I’m sorry, but we talked about this.” 

Right, he was called “(the) Riddler” for reasons other than confusing taste in clothing. Garcia saw Morgan subtly move his hand closer to his gun. Not towards it exactly, just closer.

The Reader shifted the files to the crook of one arm and grabbed Nygma’s lapel with the other. His speech got faster and faster as it went. “No. They have no proof, and I can keep these files they gave me and threaten to have them fired. This isn't their jurisdiction if they haven't been invited and I've done nothing across state lines. They can go. You can have them escorted out of town if that’d make you feel better. Ban them from Gotham. But they’re going to go and they won’t come to harm from you, or Oswald, or anyone who works or has worked or might work for either of you by proxy or otherwise.”

The Riddler sometimes spared people if they answered riddles correctly, proving themselves in his mind as intellectuals who could appreciate him. So she blurted out, “Execution?”

Nygma gave her a thumbs-up and smile before resuming his argument. It was terrifying and, okay, hysterical mind, slightly funny. “I thought we’d established what side you’re on. I don’t want to go back to the drawing board.”

“I told you right when we made our deal that if you wanted me to participate in going after these people…” The Reader dropped the files on the floor with a bang and whipped around. “If either of you touch a phone or a gun I’m going to be put in the position of taking a bullet for you, and that is a desirable outcome for nobody.”

The two of them put up their hands. Garcia tried to breathe evenly. 

“Right. Good.”

“I wouldn’t let you take a bullet for anybody,” Nygma said. 

“End up a prisoner again, then.” Then the Reader’s voice gentled. “You killed Kristen to cover up Dougherty, and you killed two other people and framed someone else to cover up Kristen, and it was the framing that got you caught. If these two die, we get the FBI here. Let’s not escalate this. For your sake and those who love you.”

This was now a hostage negotiation. Sweet, empathetic, clever Dr. Spencer Reid wasn’t gone. He was still in there. She had a lot of feelings about that. She couldn’t name them right now. 

After a moment of tense silence, Nygma said, “Fine. We keep the files. They pack their bags immediately. Yoona and whoever else from the Zsasz Family is available will get them out of the city limits. This is the final warning.”

“Probably not Victor himself,” the Reader said softly, glancing at Garcia like he knew how scared of that man she was.

“He’s on an assignment elsewhere.” Nygma cleared his throat. “Everyone’s going to hand their weapons to the Reader right now, as he is the only person that all of us can trust not to kill any of us.”

Garcia did something very stupid on impulse. She hugged the supervillain that had grown around their friend. Their little brother, really.

“I’m nobody you know,” he said weakly. “Ed, it’s fine, she’s having a rough night.”

“If you ever decide to come home, I’ll be there for you,” she whispered.

He delicately pushed her away. “Article 18 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: 'Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief.’”

Morgan said, “I don’t think it applies to situations like this.”

“I don’t really care what you think, and you’re lucky I want Reader to be happy,” Nygma snapped. Garcia supposed he could have left Reid to die with the others. That was something in his favor. Where there was life where was hope. 

The Reader gathered up the three guns. Morgan had a second one strapped to his ankle, a trick he’d learned from Hotch. No point in trying to hide that from someone who'd learned much of his shooting skill from Hotch.

“Yoona is still armed, but the rule is that if she gets contradictory orders from us two, Oswald has to break the tie. If and only if he’s unavailable, she’ll use her own judgment,” Nygma explained as he opened the door for the assassin. Her clothing was pretty hardcore dominatrix, but one had to acknowledge that she rocked it. She was reapplying her black lipstick as she entered.

“Candy will be here shortly. She’ll ride shotgun and I’ll drive until we leave the municipal area, then we’ll hop into a Family car and you can continue on, never to return,” she said matter-of-factly. 

“Didn’t go around talking about weekend plans. If someone somehow figures out where we went, we’ll say we went to Gotham to see where y-I mean, where _our friend_ died. For closure,” Garcia said. She prodded Morgan and he nodded slowly, gritting his teeth. They'd probably drink a lot once they got back to Virginia. At least they'd do it together. 

The Reader said, “I make no claim of having any knowledge of a friend of yours who has been presumed dead, but I’ll hazard a guess that he would appreciate being loved and missed and want those who loved him to be happy, and to leave him alone if his life has become incompatible with theirs. Especially if he would face severe repercussions for sparing you too many times. I dunno, maybe.” 

“I’ll help you carry the files so you can hang onto the guns,” Nygma said. “I bet you’ve finished reading.”

“Almost. I was interrupted.” He trailed out the doorway after Nygma. 

But he definitely looked back. One last time.

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